Harry Veeder <hlvee...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Since theatrical performances did not entirely disappear with the advent of > motion pictures and motion pictures did not disappear with the advent of > television, I doubt paper books will ever disappear. > Well said! A good comparison. However, theater mostly disappeared. Many people today have never seen a live theatrical performance. Most theater-goers are wealthy people who can afford the high ticket prices, whereas in 1900 everyone went to the theater or vaudeville. The same is true of live musical concerts. Tickets for the theater will get more and more expensive compared to other commodities for the indefinite future. This is because you cannot automate theater (except with pre-recorded music, which scandalizes the purists and the musicians' union), and it is labor intensive. For the same reason, the cost of college tuition and one-of-a-kind fine art such as oil paintings will increase indefinitely. Obsolete technology is often valued as a luxury item, especially in transportation. People think there is something especially worthy about horses and sailboats today, whereas in the past when everyone had no choice but to use them, there was nothing special or elitist about them. Even now, some elitists think there is something uniquely good about live theater that cannot be captured in movies. (I tend to think movies are inherently superior, since you can come close the actors, and they can repeat the performance until they get it right.) The Japanese government has given many high cultural awards and Imperial Awards to performers in obsolete live performances such as the Kabuki, and "Living Treasure" designations to many people doing obsolete art forms, whereas it gave no recognition whatever to the greatest Japanese artists of the 20th century, the movie directors Ozu and Kurosawa. (Robert Smith remarked that "Living Treasure" means the art form is done for, and the person getting the award won't be around much longer either -- it's kind of like the kiss of death.) The painter Raphael Soyer was conservative about the arts, and strictly representational, but interestingly enough he thought the greatest graphic artist of the 20th century was Ingmar Bergman. I thought so too. I am pretty sure that was the minority view in the fine arts community at least until the 1980s. That was his socialist persona surfacing. This is partly an example of "conspicuous consumption;" a term coined by Thorsten Veblen in the book "The Theory of the Leisure Class." It refers to flaunting your ability to throw away money on useless extravagance. A definition: ". . . the act of purchasing and using certain goods and services, not in order to survive, but rather to identify oneself to others as having superior wealth and social standing. These possessions and services are extras that are to some extent wasteful. They symbolize one's ability to waste whatever one wants." - Jed
